Chapter 21 #3
Every inch of her skin shimmered in the moonlight, and Brand had the sudden, overwhelming urge to to drop to his knees and worship the goddess in front of him.
Lunara was every fantasy he’d ever had—and she was shivering.
Without a thought, he snatched up another towel and hurried behind her. Touching her was probably a mistake, but he couldn’t help himself.
Just like he couldn’t help goading her.
“Such foul language,” he teased, letting his lips brush the shell of her ear as he draped it over her shoulders and squeezed.
Her breath hitched. “Yes, well…”
Brand rounded her again, wanting to gauge her expressions. To see if she felt it too, this thing pulling them together.
Lunara bit her lip, and his blood roared at the sight of one, sharp fang peeking out. Then he noticed her hooded eyes, the lazy heaving of her chest, and he nearly bellowed his delight.
“Well?”
She raised a challenging brow, absolute fire in the look. “Well, I had no idea that your arse was capable of looking the way it does.”
The smirk that tugged at one side of his face felt foreign—too confident, too smug. The kind of look Lyriat would pull, the arrogant bastard.
Shite, Brand hardly knew who he was around her. Shameless flirtation was not something he did often. Or ever. He wasn’t even sure he was doing it right.
But, with her, it was like…
Like lazy days spent swimming in the warm sea. Like the tingle of rare, irrepressible laughter. Like the comfort of a soft bed after hours in his workshop.
Easy. Energizing.
Like she could make him forget every bloody thing trying to destroy his peace, so he could focus all of his attention on her instead.
Lunara nonchalantly tossed a wet clump of hair over her shoulder as if she were a queen, knocking the second towel loose and emphasizing her long neck, her bare shoulder.
Yes, his greater half crowed, seizing some of his control. Ours.
Burning fucking Solyrian, he had to get her covered before he tackled her to the ground.
Brand reached for the emerald linen dress she’d summoned, trying to convince himself it was for the best. That he wasn’t just looking for an excuse to touch her. “Shall I help you dress, Lunara?”
She turned her wide, sea-blue eyes up to him, the blush stealing over her cheeks well worth his audacity.
That gaze never left his as she nodded and shuffled closer—too much and not enough, all at once—but Lunara surprised him.
Her power spiked, the lengths of their hair drying in tandem with a wave of her fingers. Another, and the garment was gone from his hands, appearing on her body.
Except, it was gaping from neck to navel—unfastened buttons pulling the fabric aside, untied laces dangling from the parted neckline and falling beside the heavy mounds of her barely-covered breasts.
Sweet… merciful…
Brand was staring. Mouth gaping. Words gone.
Lunara placed one end of the ties into each of his hands. “I thought you were helping me dress.”
Fuck.
There was no explanation for how Lunara had gone from blind panic to this.
Panting. Hot. Practically salivating.
It had started in the water, the desire to touch him overwhelming her. Every lap of the river against her prickling skin had been a sweet torture. And when she’d heard him leaving the river, the temptation to peek had been too great to ignore.
Blessed moons, what a sight it had been.
Brand was even larger without any clothes on, every hard inch of him flexing and straining as he bent and then dried himself. Slowly.
Her mouth had actually watered, fangs itching to sink into any part of him. There was no way it hadn’t been on purpose, meant just for her, and she’d practically run out of the river when his head had fallen back and he’d—
“Don’t you—” Brand cleared his throat. “Don’t you need undergarments?”
If she wasn’t completely breathless, Lunara might have laughed outright.
“Ah, uh… I don’t generally wear undergarments?” It came out as a question, but Lunara was fairly certain. “What can I say?” She shrugged. “I hate them.”
It’s possible he maybe, definitely, didn’t need to know that about you.
Brand said nothing. His throat worked as he stood there, still as a statue—rather gratifying, actually, to see him speechless when faced with the prospect of her naked body.
“Literally never?” he finally rasped.
She reveled in the way his eyes narrowed as he perused her from head to toe. “Do stockings count?”
“No,” he growled, and the sound sent a shiver racing down her spine.
“Then literally never.”
Brand let out a slow breath through pursed lips before he tugged and wrapped the drawstrings of her dress around and around each hand to pull her in.
Awareness of him, of his size and heat, bloomed over every inch of Lunara’s skin the closer she got until—with a final, gentle yank—she was pressed against him.
Her dress fell further apart, until it would take nothing more than a single, heaving breath for her to spill out and bare herself to him.
For a stand-still second of madness, she gave in and imagined a future that held everything she’d ever actually wanted, everything she wished for. Just a glimpse of what life could be like if things were different.
Stars, how she craved it.
No one had ever looked at her the way Brand did in that suspended moment. While they hovered there together, Lunara lost in the speckled depths of his eyes, it was so fucking easy to forget.
His fingers landed on her collar bone and crept down over the swell of one breast, dipping under the open seam of her bodice.
Oh, just do it. Just arch your back and—
Brand pinched a wayward curl that had gotten stuck underneath, the ends tickling in exquisite ways as he drew it out.
“In all my long years,” he said, dragging the length across his open mouth down his bearded chin, “I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything quite so magnificent as these wild, untamed locks.”
“Oh.”
Stars above.
Not what she’d expected.
Brand tucked the strand away and laced his fingers with hers. Bringing them up to the hard plane of his chest, he left hers there to plaster his own at her lower back, her nape, hauling her more firmly against him.
His gaze dipped her lips, a muscle ticking in his jaw, and her sharp fingernails dug into his unyielding flesh in answer.
Blessed moons, he was going to kiss her. Ruin her. She would never be the—
“Your Highness?” Hedda’s voice was like a punch to the gut. “Lunara?”
She jumped back, closing her dress with a thought as Brand whipped around and scrubbed a hand down his face.
Still wrapped in only a towel. Barely.
Sisters save her.
Seconds later, Hedda ambled into the clearing. “Forgive me. We were worried. It’s been quite a while.”
The Demon commander took everything in. Lunara didn’t miss the way she swallowed and straightened when her eyes landed on Brand, assessing his state. Probably realizing what she’d just interrupted.
Curse and damn her.
Better this way. No silly notions to distract you from reality.
Maybe.
Or, what if Brand could be her reality for a little while? Just until it was all over. Until she fled from his life and went back into hiding.
The second you leave Thodelebor, you’re going home. Or calling in your debt. Anything else is madness!
She wanted to scoff. For a minute, even that side of herself had been desperate to see what he would be like. Feel like.
“We’re fine.” Brand’s clipped voice cut off her musings, his sigh heavy. “I just need to get dressed.”
“Right,” Lunara said, backing towards Hedda. “I’ll… um… give you some privacy.”
Brand made a low sound. “This isn’t over, Lunara,” he said, whorls of light dancing up his forearms and stealing her breath.
If the heated look he leveled on her was anything to go by, then no, it most certainly wasn’t.
It should be! It bleeding fucking should be, you daft ninny.
How could it be?
Goosebumps broke out all over her in response, anticipation an effervescent pool within her. In that moment, she wanted everything he was promising with every fiber of her being.
Lunara didn’t respond with words.
Good thing she’d called the moonlight while bathing.
She almost hadn’t risked it, but Brand had turned away and she hadn’t been able to resist. It had relieved some of her pain—just enough that she could ignore the fire licking at her nerve endings and add a little something extra to the sway of her hips as she sauntered off.
She failed to stifle the smile teasing at her lips. Perhaps she’d make some searing memories after all.
In the night, after the fire dwindled to nothing and a chill rendered her bedroll utterly useless, the nightmares came.
Probably because she’d been thinking about him, but it happened often.
Every time, she would swear someone was trying to tell her something, leading her through truths and lies to see if she could tell the difference. Someone beside her, though she could never turn her head to look.
Instead, she was locked on moonstone towers of the Upper Block as they crumbled around her, her father’s power raging to save them. Her mother’s screams, echoing in places they hadn’t happened, a constant shrieking under the warped devastation.
Even in sleep, she couldn’t stop the outcome. Couldn’t manipulate the horror into fantasy.
Over and over, they died. All of them. Sometimes the way it had happened, sometimes differently. Worse.
Always by the same, bloody hand.
Malachyr the Mistwarden, Keeper of Illamiata. The Evesong’s cursed blessing.
The worst part was always the twisted ending, when her mind whispered the lie that she’d never gotten free. That Cordelia hadn’t given in and hidden her. That he was still alive and searching for her, alongside the rest of the Elder Council.
It was an eternity that Lunara was trapped there, delirious, reliving the horrors behind closed lids.
Until she was saved by a solid body pressing against her back. A heavy arm over her waist. A flattened palm against her stomach tugging her closer. That blessed heat and solidity worked to dispel her terror, and she was finally lulled back to sleep by hazy, baritone murmurings against her ear.
Into the best dreams she could remember having, even while lying on the hard forest floor.
She must have conjured her savior, though. Lunara was alone when she awoke to the first tepid rays of dawn, the ground cold beside her.
And a familiar voice was shouting loud enough to wake the dead nearby.